


Boris and Natasha Go to the Red Room (His Name's Not Boris)

by imadra_blue



Series: The National Anthem in Minor Key [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Backstory, Canon - Movie, Child Soldiers, Complete, Disturbing Themes, Drama, Familial Relationships, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery, Novelette, Past Child Abuse, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Slice of Life, Tragedy/Comedy, memory recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-06 04:25:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1844335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imadra_blue/pseuds/imadra_blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky doesn't remember much, just a skinny little blond boy with too-big eyes and a little redheaded girl with hard eyes.  He meets the Black Widow at the Smithsonian's Captain America exhibit and soon follows her on a journey to recover his memories for one of those children.  Along the way, he discovers ladies' razors are useless, Sailor Moon is better than Captain America, he doesn't like caviar, and love is for children.</p><p>..</p><p>(Completed.  A Steve/Bucky sequel novella called "Post-Bellum Blues (Featuring the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company H)" has been posted.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Maria Hill Needs Better Razors (And Probably a New Kitchen Table)

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** Some disturbing elements are strongly implied later in the story, when the backstory is revealed. It remains at the level of implication except for a few brief, non-graphic scenes involving child soldiers and the abuses contingent upon that.  
>  **Beta Readers:** Many, many thanks to Luthe, Insanityfallsup, and Erin C. for their hard work in trying to help me beat this into shape. All mistakes that remain are mine alone.  
>  **Story Notes:** This novelette is complete.  
>  **Series Notes:** The first part of this series, "No Sleep in Brooklyn (The Beastie Boys Lied)" is an optional prologue, so you can read this novelette safely without having read the other story. There is a sequel novella featuring Steve/Bucky, called "Post-Bellum Blues (Featuring the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company H)." This story, however, is wholly gen. Steve will appear in the final chapter, though, offering a bridge to the sequel.

...

As a name, "Bucky" struck him as rather juvenile, or at the very least old-fashioned. But it was a name. Maybe even his name. The picture of James Buchanan Barnes looked like him, though Bucky did not care for his appearance—it was too neat, too clean. So was the story attached to the picture. Little about it stirred anything in Bucky. Bravery, loyalty, honor, friendship—those weren't him. Those were just words people used to manipulate other people. It didn't really matter, though. Captain America had called him Bucky, and so Bucky he would be.

More than the Bucky display promoted manipulative American propaganda. The entire Captain America exhibit reeked of it. It told the presumably inspiring story of a sickly young man transforming into a brave hero through a singular man's ingenuity. The newly minted hero spent the war fighting for honor, justice, and freedom. He even saved the world from an evil madman. But Bucky knew better. The world was still over-crowded with evil madmen, and honor, justice, and freedom changed definitions whenever it suited the people who used it as a rallying cry. The only part of Captain America's story that seemed remotely true to Bucky was the beginning, filled with pictures of a small man, a boy really, desperation to prove himself lurking in his too-big blue eyes. Bucky knew that boy. Everything else stunk of bullshit.

Bucky turned away from the exhibit and pulled his cap down as he pushed his way through the crowd. All the controversy over S.H.I.E.L.D. on television had drawn many people from across the country to learn about the superhero who'd helped destroy S.H.I.E.L.D. Almost no one stopped by the Bucky display. No one cared. Well, almost no one. One woman stopped by the display and studied it with her hands in her pockets. She wore a purple beret tilted jauntily over her long red hair. Her frumpy brown sweater and long black skirt didn't hide her killer figure. Then again, everything about her would be killer. Just like him.

Expecting her to follow—and she did—Bucky made his way out of the museum and down the street. Most people slid away from him when he came too close. They averted their eyes and wrinkled their noses. He hadn't bathed in weeks, and strands of his long, greasy hair escaped his stolen baseball cap. His coat bore the stains of his last meal—the night before, from a dumpster outside a loud restaurant. He'd shared it with a dog. Everything about him was repugnant to these people, with their crisp, clean clothing and their bags filled with cheap souvenirs. Bucky saw little use in engaging them.

The Black Widow grabbed his metal elbow just as he turned a corner into a dark alleyway. The sudden jerk made his shoulder ache, as it periodically had since he'd escaped the Triskelion's environs. The smell of trash hung heavy in the autumn air. He glanced back at her with no expression. The sight of her brought to mind his dreams of a small, skinny redheaded girl with hard eyes and sharp fingers. He could not explain why.

Her fingers probed his elbow, as if trying to understand how the cybernetics worked, how he was put together. She was the type who needed to understand things, it seemed. "You smell awful," she remarked.

Bucky leaned forward and sniffed her. She had no scent; she did not wear perfume. That left traces, made one obvious. "You smell like nothing."

"Which is what you should aspire towards. They'll smell you coming three blocks away. Tell you what. Come with me, and I'll let you shower. I'll even buy you dinner."

At the mention of dinner, Bucky's empty stomach gnawed at him. His last meal hadn't been terribly satisfying; the dog had appreciated it more. He licked his lips and yanked his elbow free from the Black Widow's overly-curious fingers. She was dangerous, but so was he. "Why do you care?" he finally asked.

The Black Widow shrugged her shoulders. "Steve would care."

"Steven Grant Rogers. Captain America." Bucky studied her. Her face bore no expression, and she stood in a deceptively relaxed posture. She was impossible to read. "Are you going to tell him?"

"Do you want to me to?"

"No."

"Then I won't."

"Why?"

The Black Widow turned away, her skirt fluttering as she moved. "If you're not ready, you're not ready. Either come with me or don't come with me. It's up to you. This is the part where you start making your own decisions."

Bucky watched her walk away for a long moment before following.

…

Bucky couldn't remember having a hot shower before. All of the showers he could recall had been cold—to lower his body temperature before cryostasis. Hot showers offered an entirely different experience. Bucky shivered, not from cold, but from pleasure. Pain he hadn't noticed before seemed to drain away as hot water drummed on his skin. For the first time in seventy years, he felt as if he were thawing out.

Then the hot water ran out.

Irrationally irritated, Bucky left the shower. Without the heat, his left shoulder started to ache again. As he toweled himself dry, he heard the Black Widow speaking to someone down the hall. He couldn't make out the words, but a third person couldn't mean anything good for Bucky. He searched the bathroom and found a disposable ladies' razor in the mirrored cabinet. Unfortunately, the terry cloth bathrobe she'd given him did not have any pockets, so he tucked it inside the sleeve and eased himself out of the bathroom. Best case scenario, the Black Widow had lied and called Rogers. Bucky could escape that situation without fearing death. Worst case scenario, she was in league with HYDRA, and he would have to fight for his life with a two-bladed pink disposable razor bearing a flower design on the handle. He'd killed people with less, but not much less.

When he reached the end of the hall, he found the Black Widow laying down a stack of cardboard boxes stamped with "Godfather's Pizza." The only weapons in view were in the pizza box logo: two cartoonish guns crossed over what seemed to be a brick oven. The Black Widow straightened and eyed the sleeve where he'd clumsily hid the disposable razor. "What do you have there?" she asked, sounding casual.

Realizing there was no one else in the apartment, Bucky held up the razor.

The Black Widow blinked. "I thought I'd swept the bathroom clean of sharp objects. Maria really ought to switch to men's razors. They actually work."

"This is not your apartment?"

"No. It's a friend's. She's letting me borrow it for the moment."

Bucky eyed the pink razor. It did look rather pathetic, though he could think of a few creative ways to kill the Black Widow with it. He could just break the handle and jam it into her jugular, for one. "If they don't work, why do women buy them?"

"Marketing. Do you mind putting it down?"

Bucky stared at her.

"That determined to kill me?"

"I thought I heard you talking to someone else."

The Black Widow gestured at the cardboard boxes. "The pizza delivery man. He's gone now."

Bucky glanced down at the boxes. "Someone delivers food to your home?"

"Yes. I got one cheese, one bacon. I don't know what you like, but I figured I couldn't go wrong with bacon. Almost every American seems to love it. Steve can eat his body weight in bacon sandwiches."

Bucky recalled that James Buchanan Barnes was an American. It was difficult for him to think of himself as one. He spoke as much Russian as English, and he remembered very little of any country. His orders had come from HYDRA agents, whether they were embedded in the Soviet Union or in S.H.I.E.L.D. He didn't really belong anywhere.

"Well, let's eat," the Black Widow said, and opened the pizza boxes. The near pornographic sight of greasy cheese, bright red tomato sauce, and baked bread left Bucky's stomach growling. He sat down at the table and placed the pink razor to one side. His robe split when he sat, revealing his naked thighs. He wondered if he should cover them, but the Black Widow didn't seem to care as she opened a plastic bottle and poured something dark and fizzy out of it.

"I thought the Coca-Cola might stir some memories. It's been popular in America for nearly a century. I tried to buy the kind in little glass bottles, like they had in the old days, but the pizza place didn't have any, and I didn't feel like going out to look for them." She shoved the glass in his direction.

Bucky picked it up and drank it. It tasted sweet and sharp, and the carbonation tickled his nose as he gulped half the glass down. However, when he set it down, he remembered no more than he had before.

"Worth a try." The Black Widow said, studying him for a moment before opening a box. "Dessert pizza. Chocolate banana. For later." She shoved a plastic box filled with lettuce at him. "Caesar salad. That one's yours." She opened another box, filled with long, thin pieces of bread. "Breadsticks. For both of us." She gestured at the open boxes of pizza. "Well, help yourself."

Bucky waited exactly three seconds to ensure she wouldn't be in his way, then grabbed the bacon pizza box before she changed her mind. He opened it and stared at it for a moment. Something about it smelled familiar, reminding him of long nights spent in a smoky restaurant, laughing at someone's jokes. He grabbed half the pizza, neatly folded it over, and ate it. It tasted so good that he actually felt genuine sorrow when he finished.

"Wow," the Black Widow said as she sat across from him. She slid two pieces of the cheese pizza on her plate. Bucky glanced up at her and then returned to the bacon pizza. He ate the whole pizza by the time the Black Widow started on her second slice. He then ate the salad and the entire box of breadsticks while she finished her second piece.

The Black Widow stared at him. "Really? I'd wanted one of those."

Bucky shrugged. She should have eaten faster.

The Black Widow sighed. She put two more cheese pizza slices on her plate before shoving the rest of the box at him. He set upon it without hesitation. He didn't like it quite as much as the bacon pizza, but there was something deeply satisfying about it. Something he couldn't quite express, but it made him feel… normal, somehow.

"So, real talk." The Black Widow chewed on her pizza. "What are your plans? The Captain is looking for you. Of course, he overestimated your mnemonic recovery, and he went to Brooklyn to look for you first. You have about twenty-four hours before he comes back here."

Bucky licked the grease off his lips. He glanced at the dessert pizza, but nothing about it interested him, so he gulped at his glass of Coca-Cola before answering. "I have nothing to say to him right now."

The Black Widow studied him. "I get that. But what are you going to do? Continue to live as a homeless vagrant in D.C.? Offer blowjobs and assassinations for money?"

"No." Bucky frowned. He had not put much thought into what he would do. He had existed in the present for the last seventy years. The problem was that the present kept moving, and he didn't understand the trajectory. He hadn't needed to understand the trajectory, at least not until now.

"Would you like a mission?"

Bucky narrowed his eyes. He gripped the table and the knuckles on his human hand swiftly turned white. He heard a small crack from the table, but it held fast under his grip.

The Black Widow looked at him, her expression lazy. She gave no outward sign of being intimidated, but then, she wouldn't. "I'm not going to force you. Bucky, right? They list that name on the S.H.I.E.L.D. Wall of Valor, so I assume it was once your preference. But maybe things are different now. Do you want to be called James, instead? Or would you prefer the more formal Mr. Buchanan?"

"Bucky will do." He relaxed a bit at the question. This woman knew the game, and she played it very well. He continued to study her, the way she blinked ever so slowly so as to minimize the time spent not seeing, the way she could casually draped her limbs over every surface, never revealing the tension in them or how she was ready to move at a moment's notice. Her fingers crooked ever so slightly in the direction of where she hid her weapons. Something about her manner gave him an odd sense of pride. He nodded at her.

"The mission is simple, really," she explained. "I need you to accompany me to Russia, to an old HYDRA facility. I believe there might be information we need there."

Bucky leaned back in his chair and let go of the table. His metal fingers had dug imprints into the wood. Cracks spidered their way across the table. His left shoulder continued to ache. The mission sounded simple, but he doubted it was, considering who was offering it. He didn't trust her, but he wanted to. The Black Widow made him feel almost as odd as Steven Rogers did.

"Will you come?" she asked.

He glanced up at her and shrugged.

The Black Widow leaned forward. "If you don't want to, I won't make you. But I need a 'yes' or a 'no.'" The way she stared at him conjured up the image of the small, skinny redheaded girl. The girl had once stared at him like that, too, her eyes filled with expectations he didn't understand.

After a moment, he finally answered. "Yes."

…

_Next ==== >_


	2. To Russia With Love (But Love Is For Children)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky learns about Sailor Moon from a small girl, discovers economy plane seats are uncomfortable, and doesn't have sex with Natasha.

...

Bucky stared at the scanner in the airport, then at the Black Widow. He'd lost all his high-tech devices to obscure his metal arm from detectors in the firefight at D.C. And the airport wouldn't be like the Smithsonian, where he took advantage of the guards' distraction with a lost child to sneak past the metal detectors. Airport guards manned their stations like hawks, peering suspiciously into their computer screens. In front of Bucky an overweight girl backed away from the beeping scanner to place her jewelry and pocketful of coins in a plastic bucket. It rolled along a conveyor belt and into a scanner. Apparently, all metal had to go through the conveyor. While Bucky's jacket covered his metal arm, it wouldn't shield him from the scanner. He felt fairly confident that taking off his cybernetic arm and putting it on the conveyor belt would be poorly received. He also felt fairly confident that his arm wasn't detachable.

The Black Widow seemed unconcerned with his predicament as she fixed his jacket for him. He stared down at her, wondering why she felt the need to adjust his clothing. She tilted her head and glanced at his lapel before turning around. As she sauntered through the metal detector, Bucky noticed a small blinking light inside his lapel. The Black Widow waited for him on the other side, hands in her pockets, her expression unreadable. Bucky walked through the scanner, keeping his gaze fixed on her. No one looked up at him, and the scanner did not beep as it had for the girl wearing jewelry. Whatever the Black Widow had used, it was effective. He collected the bag of clothes she had recently bought him and followed her to their gate.

"Hungry?" the Black Widow asked as she gestured him to a seat some distance from the other people waiting to board the plane.

Bucky took the seat and looked up at her. "I'm always hungry."

"Then I'll be back."

Bucky watched her slip through the crowds down the terminal. Within a minute, he was alone. Or as alone as he could be in an airport terminal. A row of ferns separated him from the other passengers. He took some comfort in that. Crowds could be useful for camouflage, but they also meant too much collateral damage.

A pair of bright brown eyes peered at him from between the ferns. Bucky stiffened and reached for a weapon, but he had none, not even a ladies' disposable razor. Instead, he gripped his bag. In a pinch he could use it knock someone over and create an opportunity to break their neck. After a moment, he realized that the owner of the bright brown eyes was a small girl with olive skin and dark hair. He stared at the child, seeing the ghost of the redheaded girl that haunted him, and wondered what she wanted.

"Hello," the little girl said, emerging from the ferns with an elasticity only possessed by small children. She couldn't have been older than eight.

Bucky looked around but didn't see anyone that might be the girl's guardian. He didn't see the Black Widow either. It was just him and a child. He gripped his bag tighter. He had no idea how to interact with a small girl, unless she wanted to learn how to fire automatic weapons.

The little girl put her hands on her hips and appeared mildly offended. "You're supposed to say 'hello' back."

"Oh." Bucky licked his lips. "Hello."

Seemingly mollified, the girl sat in the Black Widow's chair, wriggling herself into open the space not covered by a bag. "I like your shirt, mister. It's my favorite."

Bucky glanced down at his shirt. The Black Widow had given it to him. The image held no meaning to him, but it appeared to be the cartoon figure of a girl in an outfit vaguely resembling a sailor's. She held a jeweled wand with a crescent moon on the end and wore red jewels set in her golden pigtails. Bucky glanced back at the girl.

"You're supposed to say 'thank you,'" she explained.

"Oh. Thank you."

"I've never seen any boys wearing Sailor Moon shirts before."

Bucky wasn't sure why boys would not want to wear Sailor Moon shirts. Though he didn't know who Sailor Moon was or what she represented, she clearly seemed to be of some importance. "Why?" he asked.

"I don't know."

Bucky wasn't sure what to say to that, but the girl continued to stare at him expectantly, clearly expecting him to speak. He reflected on various responses he could make, but rejected them all in favor of a simple question. "So what does Sailor Moon do, exactly?" he asked.

"You don't know?" The little girl blinked. "She fights for love. And justice."

"She is like Captain America?"

"Oh, yes. But better."

"Better?"

The little girl nodded enthusiastically. "Because she's a girl."

"I don't understand why that makes her better."

"Then, clearly," the Black Widow said from behind him, "you have a lot to learn."

The little girl blinked and stared at the Black Widow with round eyes. She opened and closed her mouth without sound before finally exclaiming, "I know you, you're—"

"On a secret mission. So keep it secret. Now, scoot," the Black Widow said.

The little girl beamed and jumped to her feet. "Yes, ma'am! I'll keep your secret!" She scampered off then, disappearing past the ferns.

The Black Widow sat down on the vacated seat, holding bags of food. "I see you made a friend."

"I don't think two minutes of conversation count as friendship."

The Black Widow ignored him and opened the bags of food. "I'm glad your shirt earned you some female attention."

"Is Sailor Moon a famous hero? I do not recall hearing about her. Is she part of the Avengers?"

The Black Widow smiled. "She's a famous hero, but she's fiction. A cartoon character from Japan. She's very popular, though, especially with women my age. That little girl was likely introduced by her mother."

"Oh." Bucky considered the image of the cartoon heroine as he took the wrapped sandwiches that the Black Widow passed to him. "Why did you give me this shirt?"

"I gave you that shirt because in 1999, when I first arrived as a S.H.I.E.L.D. office in America, I was made to wait in the lounge while Barton went inside the office to meet with Fury and Pierce. Maria Hill stayed with me and put on the television. _Sailor Moon_ was the first show I ever watched as a free person."

Bucky watched as the Black Widow took a bite of her sandwich and waited, but she did not continue speaking. He set about eating his own sandwich and tasted bacon. She'd remembered he liked it. He looked up at her. "1999? You look very young. When were you born?"

"1984," she responded between bites of her sandwich.

"You were only fifteen when you joined S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"Nearly sixteen. I'd been working for a secret KGB faction for nine years already."

Something about that statement made Bucky want to throw up, but he couldn't pinpoint what. His thoughts set him adrift in time. Meaningless images flashed through his mind. In one, the little redheaded girl reeled back from a blow. In another, she gripped his metal arm, begging him not to go away. In yet another, Alexander Pierce tilted his head, hands in his pockets, his lips curving into a smile as he explained Bucky's new mission to assassinate a dangerous teenage girl. Bucky took a deep breath and looked up at the Black Widow but she had stood up, her bag in her hand.

"I'd prefer you to call me Natasha, by the way. It's common enough where we're going that no one will think much of it. Now, it's time to board the plane." She jerked her head at the forming line and walked off, red hair spilling over her shoulder.

Bucky finished the last of his sandwich and followed, unable to stop staring at her hair.

…

Economy seating on an international flight left much to be desired. The food was bland, and he still felt hungry after the meals and snacks they brought him. He wondered if they were shorting him. As time wore on, food became the least of his problems. With his bulk, Bucky couldn't find a comfortable angle to sit no matter how he shifted. They clearly had not built the seats for well-muscled men carrying extra weight on their left side. His metal arm rested awkwardly on the too-thin arm rest, jammed against the window, leaving his shoulder hurting more than ever.

Bucky opened his mouth to ask Natasha a question, but she cut him off.

"Watch a movie if you can't sleep," she said, eyes closed, arms folded over her chest.

Bucky sighed and scanned through the films on his backseat video display. He avoided the action section entirely and settled on a romantic comedy. He had seen more than enough violence, but was rather curious what love looked like.

…

As Natasha arranged for their hotel room, Bucky considered the Coca-Cola vending machine in the lobby. Natasha had said that Coca-Cola was associated with America, yet here it stood in the lobby of a hotel in a rundown district of Moscow, once the capital of the Soviet Union. The end of the Cold War seemed to have made the world a smaller place. Bucky inserted a few coins and watched a can of Coca-Cola drop out.

Bucky bent down to fish out his can. When he straightened, Natasha slipped an arm around him. She smiled brightly. "Let's go, honey! I can't wait to see our room!" Her fingers tightened around his waist as she led him to the elevator. She did not let him go until the elevator doors closed. An image passed through his mind of the little redheaded girl clinging to Bucky's waist as they dangled off the side of a crumbling building.

As they began to ascend, Natasha smirked. "I listed you as my husband, Boris Ilyich. We're Boris and Natasha."

"Okay."

"See, it's funny because there's this cartoon, called _The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show_ , and there's these Russian characters called—"

"—Boris and Natasha."

"You've seen it?" Natasha asked, blinking.

"No, but why else would you make a point about the names Boris and Natasha?"

Natasha sighed. "Killjoy. You and Steve really are made for each other."

"I don't understand." Bucky didn't understand much of any of this. He didn't understand why having the names of cartoon characters was funny, much less why this meant he was made for Captain America, whatever that implied.

"He doesn't appreciate my humor either."

The elevator doors opened, and Natasha led him to their room. Bucky set down his bag on a chair, noting there was just one large bed in the room. Natasha turned to study him as she closed the door. "Take off your shirt."

Bucky blinked, but he peeled the Sailor Moon shirt off as Natasha approach him. At this point, he was fairly certain she intended him no harm. He began to suspect where this was going, given the way males and females interacted in the movies he had watched on the way to Moscow.

"Sit down," she said, gesturing at the bed.

Bucky did so without reflecting on the command. Following orders was what he did best. He just wasn't sure if he knew how to do what she wanted. "Aren't you going to remove your own clothing?" he asked.

"Why would I need to do that?" she replied, as she bent forward to examine where metal met flesh on his shoulder.

"Isn't that how sex is performed? Without clothing? Or is only one person's removal of clothing sufficient?"

"Sex?" Natasha leaned back and raised an eyebrow at him. She had a beautiful face, gently sculpted and pleasing to the eye. Bucky was certain many men desired to bed Natasha, but he felt no such desire in himself. Looking at her, with her soft cheeks and hard eyes, only made him feel sick to his stomach. "You think we're going to have sex?" she asked, her tone surprisingly light.

"Isn't that why there is one bed and you asked me to remove my clothing?"

Natasha's lips curved, but not into a smile. Bucky had no word for her expression. "There is one bed because we are pretending to be married for the purposes of avoiding notice. I will not sleep tonight, but you should. I only want to see how your metal arm works. It looks like they changed it."

"So we aren't going to have sex, then."

"Do you even want to?" Natasha's brow furrowed.

"No."

Natasha nodded. "It would be weird, wouldn't it?"

Bucky considered that word, its meaning, and compared it to the queasy feeling he had at the thought of having sex with Natasha. "It seems as good a description as any other."

Natasha's fingers probed the seam between Bucky's skin and metal. Pain shot through the joint at her touch. He did not flinch. "Do you remember ever having sex?"

"No."

"Do you wonder if maybe HYDRA commanded you to do that, too?"

"I didn't. I do now."

"I wish I could tell you it never happened, but if I were you, I'd leave that off the list of things to remember."

A change of subject seemed to be in order. Bucky didn't need to know what HYDRA had ordered him to do. He understood the general gist of it and that was more than enough. Even knowing that he had been a person before HYDRA was more than enough for him. When he thought back too far, he could only remember pain. Instead, Bucky thought back to something Natasha had said when she began studying his arm. "How do you know they changed my arm?" he asked her.

Natasha moved to his back, poking at the flesh, working her way over his left shoulder. It hurt more the further she got out. "We met once before. You were sent to kill a nuclear scientist that I was protecting."

"Did I?"

Natasha's fingers stilled for a moment. "Yes." She poked his neck vertebrae, and pain burst through his spine so intensely that he hissed. "That hurts. They wired your cybernetic arm directly into your spine, and you have an old injury here." She tapped a spot on his left shoulder, near the seam between metal and flesh. The touch sparked new pain. "The scar tissue is likely causing this pain. Looks like a badly healed knife wound." Her eyes glittered when she said that, her expression intense.

"I suppose that is good to know."

"Yes. It means you have a weak spot." She tapped his neck vertebrae once more, sending pain rocketing through his spine again.

Bucky whirled around to grab her hand, but she snapped back just in time, so his fingers only passed through her long red hair. He stood and narrowed his eyes at her. She pressed against the wall, eyes narrowed, fingers splayed. They considered each other for a long moment.

"Is that why you've brought me here?" Bucky demanded. Natasha made him feel exposed, as if she could see right through to everything he didn't know. "To find my weak spots?"

"No. I brought you here to come with me to the HYDRA facility. I need back-up." After a moment, she stood away from the wall. "But your arm needs adjustment. You're deteriorating without the HYDRA scientists constantly working on you. S.H.I.E.L.D. has people that could help you."

"S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't exist any longer."

"S.H.I.E.L.D. might not, true, but many of those people still exist. And they would be happy to help you."

"Why?"

Natasha took a step closer. "Because you're Captain America's best friend and a martyr to them. Your name has been inscribed on every Wall of Valor that S.H.I.E.L.D. ever built. At the top."

"Bucky Barnes is the martyr. I'm not him."

"Aren't you?"

Bucky sat down. He didn't know how to answer that. He took the name because it was better than being called the Winter Soldier, but was it any different than the Boris Ilyich alias that Natasha had chosen for him? Wasn't it just a name used for convenience, perhaps even amusement? He rubbed his mouth. "You said 'them.' Not 'us.' Why are you different than the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents?"

Natasha knelt before him. "Because I know you." The way she looked up at him—it was if she was searching for something.

Bucky looked down at her, and all he saw was a small redheaded girl clutching a blood-stained green book and begging him not to go away. He closed his eyes, banished the image from his mind, and opened them again.

"How do you know me?" Bucky asked. "Bucky Barnes died long before you were born."

"No. Not him. You." Natasha stood. "You stay here. Rest. I'm going to make arrangements for tomorrow."

Bucky didn't ask her what she meant by knowing him before she left. The possibility that she might answer terrified him.

…

_Next === >_


	3. Deeper Into the Rabbit Hole (But Where Are All the Rabbits?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky shares a Russian meal with Natasha, recalls bashing a man's head in with a silver skull paperweight, and discovers the walls are still red in a certain room.

...

They'd traveled all day. Evening had fallen, draping the world in dark blues and grays. It was cold, but it didn't snow. Natasha drove along empty roads in a rented car until they emerged into the countryside, where only the occasional building broke the tedious landscape of snow and dead trees. Bucky sat in the passenger side, his mind drifting until Natasha slowed down. They had reached a small cluster of buildings.

"Is this the HYDRA facility?" Bucky asked as Natasha pulled into the parking lot of an old-fashioned building nestled between a grocery store and a post office. Its lacey curtains were all drawn back, revealing a dining room filled with white table linens draped over dark wood tables. A handful of people sat at those tables, eating and talking to each other animatedly.

Natasha slid the car into one of the open parking spaces. "No. I'm in Russia, and I want to enjoy the food. I called ahead and made reservations. It's not the best, but it's considered a good family restaurant. I'd wager you've never had a nice Russian meal before."

"If I had, I wouldn't remember."

Natasha studied him. "They kept you on a diet of high protein bars and nutrition shakes, meant to maintain your energy and increase your bulk to carry the weight of your cybernetic arm. My own diet as a child wasn't much different. I never even had a proper Russian meal until after I joined S.H.I.E.L.D. Food wasn't something my training facility cared about. But I care about it." She turned off the car's ignition. "We should have a good meal before we go to the HYDRA facility."

"To maintain our energy?"

"Because I'm hungry. Aren't you?"

"I'm always hungry."

"That's what I was counting on."

Natasha led him inside, where they were quickly seated at a table reserved for "Boris and Natasha." Every time their waiter said the names, she smirked. Bucky still didn't understand why she found that so amusing.

Within moments, drinks were poured. Natasha ordered for both of them, and when the waiter disappeared, she stared at Bucky over her glass of white wine. Bucky did the same. He had no way to determine what good wine was, but it tasted fine to him. He preferred Coca-Cola, however.

"You know, in a way, you're more Russian than you are American," she told him. "Your Russian is perfect. And you spent more years in Russia and working for Russians than anywhere else."

"If you say so."

"I think I'm more American than Russian now." Natasha sipped her wine. "When I was Russian, I didn't care what I ate. I just ate what they gave me. Now, I like to appreciate my food. I think about the things I eat, and the things I give others to eat. Food has meaning. It's tied to culture, to a sense of self. Knowing what you like to eat is part of who you are. How you react to food is part of who you are. People's diets reflect their personalities, their cultural heritage, their illnesses and strengths. Food is identity."

Bucky considered this. "So far, I like bacon pizza and Coca-Cola."

Natasha took another sip of wine and set down her glass. "And I like to eat the Russian family meals I never ate when I was Russian."

Conversations were tricky. Bucky wasn't sure he knew how to properly handle one. And he wasn't sure he wanted to go in the direction Natasha led him. She spoke a lot to him, but with others she seemed curt, brief, taciturn. Even the question of why she was so talkative with him seemed dangerous. It left him feeling exposed, vulnerable, unable to defend himself from surprise attacks. He sipped at his wine, buying himself time.

The waiter delivered a plate of black caviar on ice, along with butter and toast points. Natasha served herself. Bucky followed her example. When he took a bite, salt burst through his mouth, the flavor unpleasantly off. He set the caviar-covered toast down.

"That, just now," Natasha said, her gaze fixed on him. "That expression you made, the slight grimace. You don't like this. Slowly, but surely, you're building your identity."

"So identity is a set of likes and dislikes."

"In part. Likes and dislikes are an expression of identity."

Silence fell between them again as they ate. The soup soon arrived: bowls of borscht filled with meat, cabbage, beets, and potatoes stewed together with sour cream dolloped on top. Bucky far preferred the soup to the caviar. It had a rich, warm taste, and it reminded him vaguely of a small kitchen draped in white curtains with yellow flowers. A small, skinny boy with blond hair falling over his too-big blue eyes asked Bucky if he liked the soup.

"Where were you just now?" Natasha asked.

Bucky blinked, and realized Natasha's bowl of soup was already empty. So was his, though he could not really recall eating it all. He tilted his head. "I don't know. A kitchen. A boy was in it. He'd made soup for us. It was different from this, but it had potatoes and a little meat in it, too."

"Captain America can cook? There's a skill they never listed in his profiles."

"You think it was him?"

"You don't think it was?"

Bucky recalled the small, skinny youth shown in the Smithsonian Exhibit—Steven Rogers before his miracle transformation. The boy in his memory looked much like that, but smaller, younger, gentler in the face. "I suppose it was."

"Is he the only person you remember?" Natasha asked, folding her hands behind her empty bowl of soup. Her face bore no expression, but her eyes seemed sharper than ever.

"No, I—" Bucky rolled his aching shoulder, feeling as if he stood on quaking ground. "I remember a little redheaded girl."

Natasha exhaled. "How much do you remember about her?" Her voice sounded tightly controlled, unnaturally even.

Bucky shrugged and studied Natasha until the main courses were laid out before them: veal dressed in a sour cream sauce with potatoes on the side. Bucky tasted it and decided he liked it, but he didn't say so, lest speaking encouraged Natasha to ask her question again.

They ate in silence for the rest of the meal.

…

It was dawn by the time they arrived at the abandoned HYDRA facility. Gray storm clouds covered the sky. Natasha drove them down a dirt road and stopped by what looked like a storm cellar. When they got out of the car, she inspected the doors without comment. The wood had darkened and rotted a bit at the edges, but the doors held fast when Natasha tested them.

"This facility doesn't seem recently used," Bucky commented.

"No. They shut it down fifteen years ago."

"I see." Bucky slammed his metal fist into the doors, splintering them apart. His left shoulder spasmed with pain, so he rolled it a few times until it quieted back down to the usual ache.

"Thanks," Natasha said, as she slipped into the gaping dark hole revealed by the broken doors.

Bucky hesitated for a moment. Something about that gaping black hole terrified him. It wasn't terror for what they might find inside the facility, but terror for what he might find inside himself. But he had come this far, following Natasha the whole way, offering her a sort of trust. Backing out now would mean abandoning her, which would make him feel worse. So he followed her inside.

There were no guards, but an alarm went off as they entered. Red lights flashed, lighting the dark, dusty hallways. Instead of wailing sirens, the alarmed hummed softly. Natasha sauntered down the halls, unconcerned. She ran her fingers over the walls as she walked, her fingers leaving trails in the dust.

"Will someone come?" Bucky asked.

"No. The alarm doesn't go anywhere. There's no one left. It's only the two of us. Everyone else is dead." Natasha paused by an empty doorway. Inside, a security station lay empty, its screens shattered by gunshots, dried blood still staining the walls and floor. She continued to walk.

Bucky followed, coldness gnawing at his stomach. "How do you know that?"

Natasha stopped by another door. She pulled out her phone, and within a moment, the door unlocked. She pushed it open and stared inside. It appeared to be some sort of office for an administrator. Blood stained the desk, the floor. Nothing remained on the shelves, and the filing cabinets had been broken open. On the desk sat a skull-shaped paperweight. Dried blood stained most of its surface, but spots of silver still gleamed under the flashing lights. Bucky suddenly recalled the feeling of that paperweight in his hand and a savage joy attached to bashing it into a man's skull.

"Director Petrovitch's office. They found that silver skull embedded in Petrovich's skull. Or rather, what was left of his skull." Natasha chuckled, apparently finding that amusing.

"Why is it still here?"

"I brought it back here. Where it belongs." She continued walking then, leading him through the maze of hallways. Russian had been used on every sign, and Bucky passed a wall decorated with broken pictures of KGB agents arranged in a hierarchy. At the top was a man named Ivan Petrovitch, with dark eyes and a thick black mustache. In his right hand, he held the skull paperweight.

"This isn't a HYDRA facility," Bucky said, fighting off the urge to vomit.

Natasha paused by another room and opened the door. She stared inside with a distant expression. "Not officially. But there was hardly a difference, as it turns out. HYDRA had its claws as deep in the KGB as it had S.H.I.E.L.D. But like with S.H.I.E.L.D., they couldn't keep it together. After the Soviet Union fell, they eventually had to pull out. They took most of their assets with them. And then later had all the liabilities, all the failures, erased."

Bucky peered into the room Natasha was staring into. It was a small room, with cold metal walls and a small cot with rotted linens. He could almost see the small redheaded girl sitting in the corner of that cot, just outside the block of light coming from the door. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, and her hair hung in her face. When she looked up at him, a smile ghosted over her lips. Waves of nausea passed over Bucky, leaving him reeling. He gripped the doorframe.

Taking a deep breath, Bucky asked, "What was this facility for?"

"They called it the Red Room Academy." Natasha turned to study him, her face as smooth as a polished mirror, her eyes as hard as any killer's. "They took orphaned girls from across the country and trained them in combat, espionage, and even seduction once they turned sixteen. They experimented on them, testing serum after serum meant to improve their pet super-soldiers. It made some of the girls a little stronger, a little faster, but over half the girls died before they turned twelve, either from the experiments, the training, or the missions they were sent on. The ones that survived were all killed—some by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents given assassination orders, some by you. All of it was HYDRA's orders, as it turns out. The creation, the training, the experiments, and especially the executions. All the girls were expendable assets that never paid off."

Bucky forced himself to breathe again, as he had stopped. He shivered, feeling as if his skin were crumbling away, leaving his insides raw and exposed. Everything she said clicked in his mind. He knew it. He knew it, and he didn't want to know it. What had happened here was monstrous. Unforgivable. Rather than think of the redheaded girl, he focused on the memory of bashing in Director Petrovich's skull. It gave him a sense of satisfaction, at least.

Natasha watched him, her expression softening. She reached out a hand towards him, then withdrew it. "This way," she said, and turned away from the empty room. She led him deeper into the facility and paused again by a large door, half off its hinges. Inside, the blue walls seemed purple under the lights of the red alarm.

"The blue room. This is where they sent the girls when they turned sixteen, to learn how to seduce men. They called it training. I have another word for it." She glanced back at Bucky and worked her jaw. Then she continued to walk deeper into the facility.

Feeling as if he had drunk too much wine, Bucky followed her. His legs felt heavy, his chest felt cold, and his head felt full to bursting with things he didn't want to remember. Natasha stopped at the end of the hallway, before a pair of large metal doors. Bucky saw flashes of those doors in his mind's eye of throwing them open, over and over, into a large red room where the redheaded girl waited for him. His jaw clenched of its own accord, and he stretched out his fingers, so tense he could no longer bend them.

"Only one girl survived this facility." Natasha did not turn around. Her red hair lay flat against her back, in stark contrast to her black jacket. The little girl had worn black, too, though her hair had been so much more vivid, so much brighter. Could hair darken like blood splatters left to dry?

"You," Bucky choked out.

"Me. Do you know why I survived?"

Bucky forced himself to swallow, though his mouth was dry. "No."

"Because the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent sent to kill me couldn't bring himself to put a bullet in a fifteen-year-old girl. He brought me in, instead. Alexander Pierce convinced Fury to make use of me, despite my age. Back then, I thought he was the first man who didn't pity me, who valued me. Now, I realize it was because Pierce needed me to be on a mission, so he could send you after me without suspicion."

"I failed my mission."

"No. You did shoot me. But you missed my heart." Natasha placed her hands on the metal doors, just as Bucky saw his own hands on those doors in his mind's eye, and she pushed them open.

Inside, the walls were still red.

…

_Next == >_


	4. Red Walls, Red Hair, Red Ledgers (The Room Was Red)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky remembers her name.

...

The room was red. The Winter Soldier sat on a chair, watching Ivan Petrovitch light his second cigarette. Red shot through Petrovitch's eyes, his black hair hung in his eyes, and his mustache drooped over his mouth. He looked like an unkempt drunkard.

"This one is a little younger than the rest. But I have high hopes for her," Petrovitch said slowly and stupidly, as if the Winter Soldier couldn't understand Russian. The Winter Soldier didn't bother to correct him. It didn't matter to him what Petrovitch thought. It only mattered what he commanded. "She's six years old. But don't worry, she won't be one of the ones we have practicing their…. gentler skills on you in the blue room." Petrovitch laughed as if he'd said something funny and picked up his silver skull paperweight from the table.

The Winter Soldier continued to stare at Petrovitch until Petrovitch shifted his weight from foot to foot and swallowed. The Winter Soldier wasn't sure what "gentler skills" the young women being trained at the Red Room Academy would practice on him, but he didn't care until it became part of his mission parameters.

"Maybe in ten years." Petrovitch chuckled until he glanced at the Winter Soldier's face. His chuckling stopped, and his knuckles whitened around the silver skull. "They all have to be sixteen. Administrative orders. I think it's ridiculous. They teach the girls to kill when they should be in primary school, but insist they must be sixteen before we teach them to fuck. As if that were worse."

So those were the "gentler skills" he spoke of. The Winter Soldier didn't know how to fuck. He didn't particularly care to start. Not that it mattered what he thought. If he disobeyed their commands, they would hurt him again. That was all he remembered when he thought back. Pain—white-hot pain. He could only avoid more pain by completing his missions. The missions were all that mattered. 

"I want you to teach this girl everything. Train her the hardest. If she falls, let her fall. If she is hurt, let her bleed. If she dies, then burn her corpse. We think the younger we start, the stronger they will grow."

The Winter Soldier nodded.

The doors opened, and one of the female trainers walked in. Just a step behind her was a sullen redheaded girl. She was far too thin and her gray-green eyes seemed impossibly big. The Winter Soldier studied his new student intently. His mask covered most of his face, and though he had left his goggles off, he imagined he must cut a frightening figure to a small child. However, after a moment of studying him, she scowled, apparently far less intimidated than Petrovitch.

"Tell him your name," the woman commanded. She kept her hair pulled back so severely that it seemed a small miracle she had any hair left.

"My name is Natalia," the girl announced in a deeper voice than the Winter Soldier had expected for a girl her size. "Natalia Alianovna Romanova."

…

Natasha stood behind a familiar-looking table, a battered metal construction with bullet holes on one side. She placed her hands on the table. It creaked under her weight. "I don't remember my father. I only remember snatches of my mother. Mostly what I remember is how her face looked when a KGB agent shot her in the back. I don't know why. The person I remember the most from my childhood is you." She swallowed before speaking in a quieter voice. "You're as close as I have to a father."

Bucky's knees grew weak. He leaned against the wall and slid down to the hard red floor.

…

Natalia learned quickly. With just a few months of training, she could already hit a target's bull's-eye, but her true talent lay in hand-to-hand combat. She used her small body to her advantage, proving to be quick and smart about hitting the weak spots the Winter Soldier had taught her. He fought her across the breadth of the red training room, almost enjoying himself. He could have killed her if he wanted to, but he was impressed by how she kept surprising him, changing her attacks, feinting and fooling him. She might have been a threat if she didn't hit like the seven-year-old girl she was.

"Your hits are too weak," he explained. "You need to put more power behind your blows."

Scowling, Natalia turned her sharp gaze on him. "You're four times my size. I hit you as hard as I can."

Petrovitch rapped his silver skull against the observation window and grumbled something through the intercom. It was too dark to see him clearly through the glass; shadows swallowed everything but his lit cigarette. "Show her what a powerful blow feels like," he ordered in a louder voice.

The Winter Soldier did not hesitate to follow the command. He backhanded Natalia across the cheek, but with flesh rather than metal. Her small form landed in a crumpled heap, and she sobbed as she clutched her face. Blood dripped onto the red floor. Something cold settled in the Winter Soldier's gut at the sight. He lived for orders and his existence rode on commands, but he hoped he would never receive that order again.

When the medics arrived, Natalia had stopped sobbing. He didn't know it at the time, but he'd never hear her cry again.

…

"You made me strong," Natasha said. "You taught me more than you did the other girls. They gave me the most time with you. You trained me for a solid year, and once I'd learned enough to practice and train on my own, they started putting you on ice when they didn't need you. But they defrosted you pretty frequently, almost always for missions where I shadowed you. Most of the time, you didn't remember me, but you always listened. You always trusted my instincts."

…

"Don't you want to do it like last time?"

The Winter Soldier glanced at the small redheaded girl taking cover to his left. "My name is Natalia," she'd insisted before they left for the mission, seemingly offended that he hadn't known it. "I always have to tell you this every time you come back." She couldn't have been any older than nine or ten. He'd never met her before she'd been assigned as his shadow for the assignment, yet she spoke to him as if she knew him. She also often stood too close. His orders had not included parameters on how to deal with a little girl, so she frequently put him at a loss.

She seemed adaptable, however, and unfazed by his awkwardness. She spoke with an authority beyond her years. "Last time, you had me climb the railing and knife the sniper from behind," she said, apparently taking his silence as license to continue speaking. "It was a good plan, but this time, the field is larger, and there's less cover between us and the next building. If you hit me a little bit, and I put on one of the dresses from the dead girls lying around here—" She gestured at the partially burned corpses of the children killed by the explosion they'd set in the building earlier. "—then I think the sniper will think I'm a civilian. I'll spread some soot on me, so he thinks I'm burned, too. Once I stumble close enough, I can get behind him, climb up to his position, and slit his throat. Then you can take out the thugs hiding in the basement. What do you think?"

The Winter Soldier put his goggles back on and nodded. Though small and skinny, the girl was a clever fighter. The Winter Soldier was not trained for partnership, yet it felt natural to work with her. "Make it happen."

Natalia scampered away. She pulled off her black jumper and replaced it with the least burnt dress she could find. Bruises bloomed across half of her pale, thin body, all marks of her training, but she did not wince as she changed clothing. She smeared soot over her legs, paying special attention to the spots bared by the holes burnt through the dress. She smeared more soot in her vivid red hair, darkening it several shades, before returning to him.

"Go ahead and hit me hard enough to bleed," she said, her eyes as sharp as the blade she slipped into her boots. "But try not to break my cheekbone this time."

…

Natasha's eyes glittered under the flashing red lights. Her hair seemed more vivid than ever. "You were what passed for kindness in my world. You never hurt me unless ordered to. You always helped me learn, helped me survive. You appreciated my ideas. And you always made me feel safe, somehow." She looked down at her hands. "You were the only thing I looked forward to seeing back then."

…

She'd said her name was Natalia. She'd also said she had to tell him this every time she saw him again. He couldn't recall meeting her before. He wondered at that, but did not linger on the thought for too long. It wasn't part of his mission.

Natalia picked up the dead man's gun and checked the rounds in the chamber. Seemingly satisfied, she walked over to where the Winter Soldier stood. She wasn't quite twelve yet, but the specter of womanhood loomed over her. Her voice seemed huskier, her lips fuller, and her hips wider. The Winter Soldier didn't know her, yet he somehow knew she was growing up. The thought made him queasy, though he wasn't sure why.

"Everyone's dead," Natalia said. Blood glistened beneath the chandelier lights. It was on the floor, on her hands, on the gun she held. The entire mansion had been splattered in blood. Whatever threat the people here had posed to those who commanded the Winter Soldier, it had bled out onto the black and white tiled floor by now.

"Good. Now we need the ledger."

Natalia looked around and found the green book lying near the drug trafficker they had tracked here. His blood stained the covers. She opened it and flipped through the pages. "He's got red all over his ledger." She looked up and considered the Winter Soldier. "That's probably why they sent you."

"It's not our place to ask why. We've fulfilled the mission. Time to return for debriefing."

"Then you'll go away again."

The Winter Soldier paused. His fingers clutched his gun so tightly his knuckles ached. A cold pit opened in his stomach. He couldn't understand why the thought of not seeing the girl again disturbed him. Perhaps it was because she had been such an effective partner. She seemed to understand how he worked without even being told.

"I don't want you to go away." She grabbed his arm, her expression growing intense, her eyes glistening. "Please don't leave me again. Can't you stay? We could always work together. You and me. We're a team. Like—" She swallowed, her gaze searching his face. He couldn't imagine what she was looking for. "Like Boris and Natasha. I saw them in a cartoon when we were in the American hotel last mission. They're Russian, like us, and always together. Only we're smarter. Rocky and Bullwinkle wouldn't stand a chance."

"Those are not my orders. My orders are to return you to the Red Room upon mission completion." The Winter Soldier turned to leave, but Natalia continued to cling to his metal arm, her fingers probing his elbow joint as if trying to understand how he worked.

"I hate it there. I can't be there when I'm sixteen. I can't go into the blue room. I'd rather die. Please. Please, take me away." She pressed her face to his chest. He could feel her warm breath through his shirt. "Please, I love you. I don't know your name or even what you look like under that mask, but I don't care. I love you."

"Love is for children. You're not a child. You're an agent. The mission is all that matters." The Winter Soldier shook her off. His shirt felt damp where her face had been pressed. "If you willingly return to the Red Room with me, I will not report your desired insubordination."

Natalia's shoulders slumped in defeat. He took the loaded gun from her hand and walked away. After a moment, she followed him out to their vehicle, her eyes red and her face set in hard lines.

The Winter Soldier felt as if he led a prisoner to her execution.

…

Natasha licked her lips, taking a long moment before speaking again. She continued to watch Bucky as he knelt on the floor, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to do anything but listen to her. The table creaked beneath her as she pressed harder against it. "The KGB officially dissolved in 1991, but the Red Room Academy kept working. Their goal was to restore the KGB, using girls like us to seduce men into its restoration and to assassinate those that stood in the way. I guess HYDRA wanted to see if they could reestablish themselves in Russia, though it never worked out. By 1995, they pulled you out. I never saw you again until the year 2000. I was sixteen and working for S.H.I.E.L.D. That was the day you tried to kill me, but you missed."

…

The nuclear scientist wasn't the Winter Soldier's mission. The scientist had spilled halfway out of the upside down SUV, his head at a painfully awkward angle. He gurgled when the Winter Soldier approached, but he did not move. The Winter Soldier shot him. Killing him wasn't his mission, but neither was saving him. The Winter Soldier followed the dirt trail left behind by his target. She had apparently dragged herself out of her vehicle after it had rolled and crawled through the dirt with what seemed to be two broken legs, judging by the trail. She was perseverant, he would give her that. Especially for a sixteen-year-old girl.

He followed the trail for fifteen minutes before she leapt at him from behind a rock, a knife glittering in her hand. He saw her, but even he could not move fast enough to avoid her knife biting into his left shoulder. It sliced through something in his cybernetic connections, and pain shot not only through his arm, but through his spine. He spasmed with pain for just a moment, never making a single sound, before he grasped enough control of himself to ignore the pain, ignore the blood trickling down his back, ignore the fact that his left arm no longer worked. He swung around and struck the girl in the face with his flesh arm. She wheeled back and fell, striking her head on a rock. She tried to stand, but fell back again as he approached her. Her eyes looked glassy. Blood trickled down her forehead just as blood trickled down his back. 

Flesh finger curling around the trigger, the Winter Soldier pointed his gun at the girl. He hesitated, taking a moment to admire how she had made the trail appear as if her legs were broken, though they were obviously in working order. The pattern of the bruises peeking out from her torn jacket, blooming across her pale skin, left him with an odd memory of a much younger girl slipping into a burnt dress. The Winter Soldier tried to move his metal arm again, but it hung uselessly at his side. The blade had been sunk to its hilt in his flesh. The girl was good, well-trained. He felt a mysterious sense of pride upon reaching that conclusion.

The girl slid herself partially up, then apparently gave up on movement. "You probably don't remember me again," she slurred at him in Russian, smiling through the blood trickling down her face. "My name is Natalia. I always have to tell you this every time you come back."

The mission was to kill Natasha Romanoff, but the Winter Soldier hesitated. Natalia—Natalia was not his mission. Yet that name was not devoid of meaning. His finger trembled around the trigger. He stared down at her, noting her dazed expression, the way her long fingers grasped at the dirt. "I made it to sixteen without having to go to the blue room, even without your help," she muttered, her eyes fluttering closed. "You're going to kill me now, but it's okay. Only your mission matters, and since I'm your mission, that means I finally matter to you."

The Winter Soldier pointed the gun down, away from her head, towards her stomach. He fired and turned away so he wouldn't have to see her any longer. He pulled her knife from his throbbing shoulder and walked away. She'd probably bleed out and die here, in the middle of nowhere. Most people would. There was, of course, a considerable chance that she was not like most people and could survive long enough to find help, but that wasn't his problem.

He'd fulfilled his mission. That was all that mattered.

…

Bucky shook his head, gasping for air again. He touched his face, and his fingers came away wet. Natasha moved from the table and crouched down in front of him. Her expression was soft, and this time, when she reached out, she touched him. Her fingers ran over his wet face and slid down to rest on his left shoulder. The scar she'd given him all those years ago still ached.

"I… I…" Bucky licked his lips. How could he tell her he was sorry? How could he tell a woman he'd trained to kill since childhood he was sorry for being part of the monster machine that had made her? How could words ever express his sorrow that he'd failed to save her, that missions had mattered to him more than a little girl who loved him because he wasn't the cruelest man she knew? There was only one thing he could tell her that mattered. "I didn't miss."

Natasha covered her mouth. A tear slid down her cheek, glittering from the flashing red lights. She made no sound. She shook for a single second, then she wrapped her arms around him, holding him close. He had not been held close by another human being in over seventy years. He put his arms around her and took another breath. Warmth washed over him, dissolving the coldness inside him.

"My name is Natalia," she whispered. "I always have to tell you this every time you come back."

"I remember you this time," he whispered back, stroking her red, red hair.

…

_Next = >_


	5. Family Reunion (No Grown-Ups Allowed)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of the line.

...

Bucky felt hollow inside. Not empty, but hollow. Drained of something he could not explain, though he had more inside of him than he had before entering the Red Room. Hollow was what was left behind.

Natasha led him out of the Red Room, away from the flashing red lights, away from the ghosts that haunted them both. She glanced back at him occasionally, as if to make sure he was still there. The world seemed quiet for a moment, as if only the two of them existed. When they emerged from the facility, however, they found Steven Rogers and a few others waiting for them by a large SUV parked by Natasha's rented car. The world didn't seem so quiet anymore.

"Hello, Steve," Natasha said, pausing. She held a hand out behind her, motioning for Bucky to stop. Bucky saw her tense as she shifted to a subtle defensive stance. Why was she afraid of Captain America?

"Hello, Natasha. Or would you prefer me to call you Natalia?" he asked, his tone surprisingly gentle. He glanced at Bucky once before turning his attention back to her.

Natasha glanced at a black man, leaning against the SUV, his head bowed. Bucky recognized him as the one wearing a winged jetpack during the battle at the Triskelion. An unfamiliar black man stood to the side, his arms crossed, though there was something familiar that haunted his outline, a ghost that Bucky could not see. A pretty young woman with long brown hair clutched a laptop and watched them with big, sad eyes that reminded Bucky of Natasha as a little girl.

"Natasha will do. You never met Natalia," Natasha said. "I expect you're here for Bucky. How did you know I'd have him?"

Rogers glanced back at the pretty girl holding the laptop. "Skye dug up a lot of information on you." He turned back to Natasha. "I pulled on the thread, and you were right, I didn't like what I found. But I figured that if I wanted to find him, I'd have to find you."

Natasha dropped her hand and lifted her chin. "I knew you'd figure it out eventually. I knew it the moment that I exposed HYDRA and let all those secrets out, including my own." Bucky took a step forward and studied her profile. He realized once he saw her face, the way she pressed her lips together so they didn't quiver, the way her eyes shone in the afternoon light, that she wasn't afraid of Steven Rogers. Bucky put a hand on her shoulder. She smiled ever so slightly, and tension slowly seemed to drain from her.

A moment passed before Rogers took a step forward, his head bowed. "You don't have to explain, Natasha. I know about the Red Room now. I'm glad it was you who found him. I came to take both of you home."

"Home?" Natasha glanced back at the splintered cellar doors that led down to the Red Room. "This is as close to a home as I've ever had."

"Stark opened his tower to all the Avengers. It's called the Avengers' Tower now. That's our home. You're an Avenger, after all."

Natasha rubbed her lips together and glanced at Bucky. So did Rogers. The way he looked at Bucky, his blue eyes seeming to search his face, left Bucky overwhelmed and raw.

"I won't make you come with me, Bucky. I won't make either of you," Rogers said. "But I want you both to come home with me. Please. I'm still with you to the end of the line." He glanced between Bucky and Natasha. "Both of you."

Those words left Bucky as confused and reeling as they had the first time Rogers uttered them. Bucky took Natasha's hand into his metal one, steadying himself. "I won't leave you again," he told her. "We're a team, right? Boris and Natasha."

Natasha actually laughed at that, a rich bell-like sound. She nodded once at Bucky, squeezed his hand, and started walking to the SUV. Bucky followed her. Looking a bit confused, Rogers fell into step beside Natasha. He glanced at Bucky, then at her. "I know why you wanted to find him first, Natasha. You've known him since you were a little girl," he said quietly, but not so quietly that Bucky could not hear. "You must lo—"

"Love him?" Lips curved into something rather like a smile, Natasha glanced back at both Rogers and Bucky. "Love is for children, Cap. But sometimes I don't feel very grown up."

…

_End._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Steve/Bucky sequel called "Post-Bellum Blues (Featuring the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company H)" has been posted.
> 
> This was the first creative piece I've written for myself in almost two years. Any and all concrit is appreciated.


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